Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been announcing deals west of Albany for roughly a year now with a specific model: the state builds and owns a high-tech facility, which then attracts big money private-sector partners.

Cuomo came to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus in December 2012 to announce state investment of a $50 million laboratory, which would leverage roughly $200 million in private investment and be anchored by Albany Molecular Research Inc., a pharmaceutical company.

He went to Utica in October to announce a $200 million state investment in a “Nano Utica” complex — with $1.5 billion in planned investment from six leading tech companies.

Cuomo did it again Thursday, pledging $225 million in state money to build a state-of-the art green energy campus at the former Republic Steel site in South Buffalo. The first of six buildings is expected to open in 2015, and an initial private-sector investment will include two companies relocating to Buffalo and collectively investing $1.5 billion.

Cuomo has undoubtedly been the central force in each of the deals, but every general contractor needs an architect.

Kaloyeros, CEO of the SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, has become a driving force in Cuomo’s statewide economic development strategy. He was a guiding hand in the AMRI deal at the medical campus and the Utica deal, and again played a major role in the South Buffalo clean technology park.

Read a previous Business First story about Kaloyeros’ role in Buffalo development here.

“He’s probably the single greatest economic development mind New York state has,” Cuomo said Thursday during a packed news event at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in downtown Buffalo.

The model can actually be traced to Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, under whom the state underwrote $10 million in construction of a new laboratory in Albany under Kaloyeros’ direction, which was designed to be a shared space for researchers from technology companies. The concept worked, and companies first flocked to the promise of lower research costs on advanced equipment and later to the culture of innovation that developed.

About $1.2 billion in state investment, six buildings and more than 3,000 private sector workers later, that model is credited with creating an entire industry out of thin air.

“Today we are building on this model and adapting it in a grass roots approach that leverages Buffalo’s existing intellectual assets and business skills to secure the same caliber of world class companies, world class jobs and private investment,” Kaloyeros said Thursday at the Adam’s Mark.

In July, the SUNY nano college split from the University at Albany, ostensibly to allow college and Kaloyeros the ability to create new jobs and grow independently of the Albany school, and also to streamline academic and business projects across the state.

In a media gaggle after the prepared remarks, Kaloyeros said he’s been in Buffalo six times in the last few months. A new state program, Startup-NY, is expected to give major tax breaks to companies that relocate to the South Buffalo research hub. Kaloyeros said the region can expect his continued presence.

“I work for the governor,” Kaloyeros said. “This is a high priority project for the governor and I expect that to continue.”